Sunday, October 02, 2016

Realities of reformation should not be glossed over, Catholic Church says

A new visitor centre celebrating
Scotland’s Christian heritage on the island of Iona should not gloss
over the ‘brutal’ realities of the reformation, a Church spokesman has
warned.

A library of ancient documents at Iona Abbey is to be
secured for the future following a £100,000 award from the Heritage
Lottery Fund.

Hundreds of documents will now be shipped to the mainland
from the 6th century Iona Abbey.

The library will become a new visitor attraction at the historic seat
of Christian worship, which played a key role in the spread of the
religion across Scotland.

The collection’s catalogue will also be put
online to reach the widest possible audience.

Peter Kearney, director of the Scottish Catholic Media Office,
welcomed the devolvement but said ‘the tender attention now being
visited upon the 6th century monastery of St Columba in Iona is in stark
and belated contrast to the brutal destruction visited upon it during
the reformation.’

“The fact that so many monastic buildings were razed and their
contents vandalised and destroyed if they were not hidden or spirited
away has robbed Scotland of much of its spiritual and cultural history,”
he added.

“A yawning chasm of explanation and obfuscation faces anyone who
wonders why so much of Scotland’s ‘religious magnificence’ remains in
ruins,” he went on. “Hopefully, future visitors viewing the scraps of
material which remain will learn why our country embarked on such an
orgy of iconoclastic destruction, in the hope, that once learned,
history need not be repeated.”